June 22, 2014: Dallas Hospital Adventure, Student Edition

On Friday night, I volunteer, along with another teacher, to accompany a group of our international students into Dallas to go see an art exhibit and street festival. The bus ride is uneventful, aside from the second bus’s air conditioner mysteriously quitting. I am on the first bus, so I only hear about the other bus later. We arrive at the art museum and began queuing up to get tickets for the exhibit. Actually, because the new activity coordinator is a little inexperienced at “cat herding” international students, I step in, using my best teacher voice. In spite of our best efforts, some members of the group “escape” to buy dinner before we can give them their tickets, causing much confusion when they arrive later. We get the remaining students lined up (more or less) and begin counting heads. As I confirm the ticket purchase with the coordinator, she mentions that there is “kinda-sorta” an emergency call – a student has passed out from the heat but is now conscious and talking. I offer to go check him out, as I have the most updated first aid/CPR certification, and the coordinator needs to deal with the stragglers. The other teacher accompanies me. When I get to where the student is staying, he is sitting on the ground, outside the museum in the heat. One student is feeding him half of a Kit Kat bar, and the other student is holding a bottle of water; I caution the student with water to only let him sip it - it is not ice water, thankfully - but that turns out to be unnecessary. He seems a bit dazed and confused, but assents when I ask if I can touch him (as Red Cross protocol demands). His roommate says that the student had not eaten that day and had stayed up all night studying for a composition exam. I touch his forehead, and to my surprise, discover that he is cool and clammy. I instruct his friend to keep a cool, wet paper towel on the back of his neck to keep the intense summer heat at bay. He is able to say his name, date, and day of the week. He then starts trembling all over. By this time, a security guard is on the scene, and the security guard and I lift him gently and walk/carry him inside. As we lower him to a seat, he blacks out again, and his eyes roll back in his head. He starts trembling again, but his breathing is normal. The shaking – fairly mild at this time - continues, so I have a student hold his head gently in the correct position for clear breathing. In between seizures, his eyes remain at half-mast and stare in different directions. The security guard calls an ambulance. When the ambulance arrives, the student is really beginning to have a bigger seizure. I ask his friends if any of them are Level 5 or 6 – high enough English to translate if needed. His roommate and another friend volunteer to go with him as translators. I send his roommate with the ambulance, and his other friend goes with me in a taxi. The paramedics tell us to go to Baylor Hospital. What they don’t tell us is which Baylor Hospital to go to- there are three. The first taxi we hail refuses to take us – I got the impression he doesn’t like Arabs - but the second taxi knows exactly where to go. In the ER, the agent has some difficulty finding the young man, who has an unusually long “foreign” name. Eventually, the clerk locates him, and we go to his ER cubicle. He is in full seizure when we get to the hospital. In between the first two seizures, he is able to “appreciate” the cute nurses fussing over him, but can’t really speak or think clearly. The doctor expresses some serious concern over his condition, and the decision is made to move him to the ICU for “life support.” It takes three hours to get a bed, and he continues to have seizures throughout the night. During one seizure, the student becomes quite delirious, muttering “go away!” in Arabic and pulling at his IVs. He then starts crying, still not in his right mind. I cautiously lean over him to reassure the poor boy, placing one hand on his forehead, like a mother would if her boy were suffering. This is quite out of character for me, as I hate touching people I don’t know, but it seems to be the right thing to do at the moment. He suddenly grabs onto my other hand firmly …and promptly blacks out again. He has exceptionally long fingernails, so every time I try to pull my hand away, he digs into my hand with his nails. He doesn’t let go for 30 minutes, and my arm falls asleep. Finally, he relaxes into a deep slumber, and I am able to retrieve my hand. When he wakes up again, he is quite clear-headed. I re-introduce myself. “Do you know who I am?” He thinks hard, then smiles a bit, “Mom?” I explain that I am a teacher in his program. He is silent for a minute, then asks for “Miss Patria Teacher. I like her.” A few moments later, he says, in English, “I can’t control my body.” I tell him what has happened, but he doesn’t remember any of it. He goes back to sleep, but starts shivering again. The nurse brings a warm blanket, and this time, the shivering stops. Not a seizure. He turns on his side and begins to snore gently. His two friends are fairly calm during the episodes, and I am really proud of them for dealing with the situation as well as they did. They are both only 19. Actually, one of them really can’t deal with the medical procedures at all, but he always returns to the room once the medical staff leaves. The other one stays by his side, makes some phone calls (as do I), and finally connects with the patient's father through the Oman embassy. Two hours later, the orderly from ICU comes down to move him. “Como estas, Mr. Al******?” I gently explain that he isn’t a Spanish speaker. “Does he speak English?” “Yes. Well, as a matter of fact.” I guess he could pass for South American. Honestly, I am so used to dealing with people from other countries that the thought hasn’t occurred to me he might be mistaken for someone coming from a different country. He is a nice looking boy, I think a few minutes later, as I pray silently over him. I haven’t noticed before, but he has very chiseled features, with strong and regular bone structure visible under his tawny complexion; he also has a rather nicely shaped nose. A bit on the thin side, but he is still a teenager, so that may change. No wonder the nurses like him. I go up to the ICU with the patient to assist with answering the attendant’s questions. I chat with his friends quietly for about an hour as he settles in. We have one of those deep, serious conversations one tends to have at 3;00 am in a hospital room – Buddhism, Henry the 8th, and silly wars fought over camels, if I remember correctly. At 4;00 am, I leave the hospital, his two companions remaining as sentries in his room. I take a taxi back to the town I live in and have a delightful conversation with the driver from Ghana, who offers to go back for the boys later. I crawl into bed at 6am and do not wake up until 2pm.